The Untethered Mind
“The transformation of the world is brought about by the transformation of oneself, because the self is the product and a part of the total process of human existence. To transform oneself, self-knowledge is essential; without knowing what you are, there is no basis for right thought, and without knowing yourself there cannot be transformation. One must know oneself as one is, not as one wishes to be, which is merely an ideal and therefore fictitious, unreal; it is only that which is that can be transformed, not that which you wish to be. To know oneself as one is requires an extraordinary alertness of mind, because what is is constantly undergoing transformation, change; and to follow it swiftly the mind must not be tethered to any particular dogma or belief, to any particular pattern of action.. If you would follow anything, it is no good being tethered. To know yourself, there must be awareness, the alertness of mind in which there is freedom from all beliefs, from all idealization, because beliefs and ideals only give you a color, perverting true perception. If you want to know what you are, you cannot imagine or have belief in something which you are not. If I am greedy, envious, violent, merely having an ideal of non-violence, of non-greed, is of little value … The understanding of what you are, whatever it be – ugly or beautiful, wicked or mischievous – the understanding of what you are, without distortion, is the beginning of virtue. Virtue is essential, for it gives freedom.”
–J. Krishnamurti
belief
Morning Trip (305)
“Faith and prayer are important elements of my belief in God. Faith is my rock, but it is also the way I align my thoughts, my heart, and my actions to realize my goals. Prayer is the way I connect with the energy of God, it is also the way I clarify to myself what i am asking for. Thus, when I enter a challenging and uncertain situation I say, ‘I’m putting my trust in my faith, Dear Lord, and I am stepping out on Your Word.'”
–Maya Angelou
Morning Trip (303)
“It was hard enough to discover that I was a child of God, but to understand that the bigot and the murderer were also children of God was an even more difficult journey.”
–Maya Angelou
Morning Trip (283)
“I decided to start anew–to strip away what I had been taught, to accept as true my own thinking. This was one of the best times of my life. There was no one around to look at what I was doing, no one interested, no one to say anything about it one way or another. I was alone and singularly free, working into my own, unknown–no one to satisfy but myself. I began with coal and paper and decided not to use any color until it was impossible to do what I wanted to do in black and white. I believe it was June before I needed blue.”
–Georgia O’Keeffe
Morning Trip (279)
“When we doubt the truth, we start to believe in lies. Soon we believe in so many lies that we no longer see the truth, and we fall from the dream of heaven.”
–Don Miguel Ruiz, Don Jose Ruiz, and Janet Mills
Morning Trip (223)
“Anxiety is the gap between the now and the later.”
–Fritz Perls
Morning Trip (207)
“Doubt is a state of the suspension of both belief and disbelief: many people assume that thinking has only two positions, positive and negative, and if you doubt something you are disputing its validity or positing the contradictory position. This is disputation, not doubt. Doubt per se questions the form or content of what has been asserted but it itself is a freeform state of wondering what the general parameters of the issue are and how it most rationally ought to be framed.”
–Kenneth Smith
More Desire
What is desire really? Is it what marketing has taught us? thin slick glistening bodies?
lascivious actions?
the word for the relationship of the opposite creations of lack and want? a way to drive us to continue to ignore our enchantment and to seek what others directs us as perfection?
Another response to a belief that there is no such thing as happy.
Elisa's Spot 